So, to recap: Shalit didn’t really say that he would kidnap an Israeli soldier if he were a Palestinian. When asked by the interviewer whether he would do such a thing, he gave equivocal responses. He said he didn’t know what he would do if he were a Palestinian but suggested that he might have tried to fight the Israeli army “in a different way.” Asked whether he would rule out kidnapping, he noted -- factually -- that Jewish fighters kidnapped British officers during the British Mandate period.

The story’s first sentence reported that Noam Shalit “said he would kidnap Israeli soldiers if he were a Palestinian.” According to The Guardian, Noam Shalit made the statement in a television interview.

Yet the only direct quote The Guardian provides on the topic doesn’t by itself substantiate the sensational headline. The quote is: "We also kidnapped British soldiers when we were fighting for our freedom" -- a statement of historical fact, not an assertion of what Shalit would or would not do in the event of a hypothetical change of nationality.

Moreover, I couldn’t find any English-language Israeli outlet that had reported on Shalit’s statement -- surprising given the provocative nature of the words being attributed to him by The Guardian. So I was a little suspicous.

I had a Hebrew-speaking colleague track downthe interviewwith Israel’s Channel 10. It turns out Shalit didn’t quite say what The Guardian says he said.

Here’s a transcript (translated from Hebrew) of what Shalit actually said:

Q. So you support talking to Hamas?

Shalit: I support talking to anyone.

Q. Including Hamas?

Shalit: Including Hamas. Everyone who wants to talk with us.

Q. As a Knesset member, would you go out tomorrow to talk with [Hamas Prime Minister Ismail] Haniyeh?

Q. That is, even if the kidnappers of Gilad themselves one day are senior officials in the Palestinian administration and agree to recognize Israel, you would sit with them as an Israeli Knesset member.

Shalit: Presumably -- I said that if they change their ways and are prepared to recognize us and recognize that there is a Jewish state, that there’s Israel, there’s the State of Israel, yes, and they stop the war against then yes – absolutely.

Q. Shake his hand?

Shalit: Yes.

Shalit: How did Barak say? If I were Palestinian, it’s possible I too would be a terrorist or a freedom fighter -- how they call them -- or something else.

Q: If you were a Hamasnik, would you abduct an Israeli soldier?

Shalit: I don't know but maybe I would fight IDF forces in a different way, I don't know.

Q: But you don't rule it out.

Shalit: If I were a Palestinian?

Q: Yes, abducting a soldier to release prisoners.

Shalit: We also kidnapped British officers way back when, when we were fighting for our freedom.

Q: You're a cold fish.

Shalit: Thanks.

So, to recap: Shalit didn’t really say that he would kidnap an Israeli soldier if he were a Palestinian. When asked by the interviewer whether he would do such a thing, he gave equivocal responses. He said he didn’t know what he would do if he were a Palestinian but suggested that he might have tried to fight the Israeli army “in a different way.” Asked whether he would rule out kidnapping, he noted -- factually -- that Jewish fighters kidnapped British officers during the British Mandate period.

So he didn’t categorically say he wouldn’t kidnap Israeli soldiers if he were a Palestinian, but -- contra The Guardian -- he also didn’t say he would. (Britain’s Jewish Chronicle hada more accurate reporton the interview.)

He also said that that he would be willing to shake the hands of Hamas leaders, but conditioned that on them recognizing a Jewish state and stopping their violence.

It will be interesting to see if there is any fallout from the interview for Noam Shalit. Several months after the prisoner exchange that won his son’s freedom, Shalitannounced(somewhatcontroversially) that he would run for Knesset with the Labor Party.

The father of the IDF soldier captured by Hamas and released five years later last October has given a controversial interview expressing a level of understanding of the terrorist groups' actions.

Noam Shalit, whose son Gilad was just 19 years old when he was kidnapped during a cross border raid, revealed his ambitions to become a Labour Party Knesset member in January.

His political leanings were made clear with comments this week, in which he told Israel's Channel 10 that he was not averse to speaking to Hamas.

"I am in favour of speaking to anyone who wants to talk to us," he said. "If they change their ways and are willing to recognise Israel as a Jewish state, yes, I would shake their hand."

Mr Shalit also noted that Jewish paramilitary groups in Mandate Palestine "also kidnapped British soldiers when we were fighting for our freedom".

But the soldier's father, who spent months camped in front of Benjamin Netanyahu's house to campaign for action on his son's case, said that the Prime Minister should have imposed financial sanctions on Gaza.

He said: ''As soon as they capture an Israeli soldier and are not willing to release him and asking for such a price, you should put the pressure on them, including stopping the transfer of money."

He had little praise for Mr Netanyahu's role in Gilad's homecoming. "Every poll found that 70 per cent of the public wanted the deal," he said. "Netanyahu saw the public would not tolerate a repeat of what happened to Ron Arad."

Later this month, Gilad Shalit will be released from compulsory IDF service.

The boy's death, which raised to 26 the number of Palestinians killed in four days of bloodshed, came 24 hours after Israel and militant groups in Gaza agreed to observe a ceasefire deal in a bid to end the confrontation, which saw more than 200 rockets fired at Israel.

AFP described the incident where Qarmout and now Mughrabi were killed as a kind of "work accident" where an explosive device carried by 15-year old Qarmout went off. The IDF denied any strike in the area and AFP confirmed that.

It is no surprise that "Gaza medical officials" will lie and blame Israel for the deaths, but AFP reporters should presumably know what they themselves reported.

The number of victims from the airstrikes is 24, not 26, of whom 20 were terrorists (and at least one, a farmer, was effectively a human shield as Islamic Jihad terrorists were injured in the same strike.)

Sloppiness or bias?

UPDATE: Ma'an was wrong; Mughrabi was not one of the kids with Qarmout. He was killed by a terrorist bullet. From AP:

A Palestinian boy accidentally struck by a bullet when militants fired in the air during a funeral died of his injuries Wednesday, family members and witnesses said.

Palestinian health official Adham Abu Salmia initially said that 8-year-old Barka al-Mugrahbi died of wounds sustained in an Israeli airstrike on Monday.

However, Israel's military said it did not carry out a strike in the area at the time.

The boy's relatives and witnesses later said the boy was marching in the funeral procession for a Gaza militant Monday when he was struck in the head by an errant bullet.

At the time, gunmen were firing in the air, they said.

But did AP go back to Adham Abu Salmia and ask him why he lied? Will AP and other wire services keep quoting him even though they know he is a liar?

Dutch state-funded TV offers anti-Semitic game

In downloadable game, players can use 'Anne Frank card' to colonize West Bank, 'Jewish stinginess' card to gain resources.

THE HAGUE\BERLIN  A Dutch public broadcasting network last month offered its viewers a board game featuring Israeli settlers who use "Jewish stinginess" and "the Anne Frank card" to colonize the West Bank.

Organizations combating anti-Semitism have called on the Dutch government to persuade the network, VPRO, to halt the downloading of the board game.

A VPRO representative said the game was not anti-Semitic, but rather a thought-provoking satire.

The game, titled "The Settlers of the West Bank," is based on the multiplayer hit "The Settlers of Catan," first released in Germany in 1995. The Dutch variant appeared in 2010 on the VPRO website  a self-described liberal-Protestant network.

In the game, the user is a settler trying to expand his community and mine diamonds and Dead Sea mud while producing textile and bulldozers. Players can use the "Jewish stinginess" card to force competitors to hand over resources. The instructions refer three times to the "nation's typical mercantile spirit."

Terrorist attacks are described as a natural result of settlement expansion. "Saw wood, and you get wood chips: Not everyone's happy with the Israeli settlements. Least of all the terrorist," the instructions explain. "Terrorist attacks" cost players resources.

The settler may also use the "Mahmoud Ahmadinejad card" to avoid losing resources to a terrorist and simultaneously draw resources from other players. The Anne Frank House is a "winning point" for the settler.

The game first appeared on VPRO's website for younger viewers and was prominently reposted last month. The network explained the reposting by saying: "It's one of the items everyone loves to hate."

"Criticism of the settlement movement cannot appear in the form of anti-Semitic stereotypes," said Joël Serphos, chairman of the Dutch youth organization CiJO  For Israel, for Peace. Serphos added that this "gave the wrong impression, that criticism on settlements is rooted in anti-Semitism."

Serphos, whose organization opposes settlement expansion, called on the Dutch Education, Culture and Science Ministry to compel the network to remove the game from its website and apologize for its publication.

"It would be more likely as a product of neo-Nazis or Ahmadinejad," Dr. Shimon Samuels, the center's director for international relations, toldThe Jerusalem Post.

References to Jewish stinginess, the exploitation of minerals and the "contemptuous misuse" of Ann Frank's House as a "winning point" were "anti-Semitic tropes," Samuels said.

The Ministry of Education, Culture and Science provided 89 percent of VPRO's budget of 51,973,000 euros in 2010.

"This funding makes the Netherlands the largest financier of hate incitement among youth in Europe," Samuels said.

The Wiesenthal Center has written to Viviane Reding, the European Commission's vice president for justice, fundamental rights and citizenship, urging her "to take all available measures to press The Hague to withdraw its funding from VPRO for as long as it serves as a vector for racism."

Queried by thePost, VPRO Communications Manager Marina Alings defined the game as "satire." VPRO is of the opinion that "although the item 'The Settlers of the West Bank' could have done with some more delicate detailing, it is not fitting to earmark it as anti-Semitic," she said.

Alings added that VPRO did not seek permission from the designers of the original game before releasing the Dutch variant. "Since 'The Settlers of the West Bank' was made with such an unmistakable hint to the board game 'The Settlers of Catan,' the VPRO did not feel it was necessary," Alings said.

Freek Manche, spokesman for the Dutch Education Ministry, said "the minister of education, culture and science has no opinion about this specific game." He added that the minister would not ask to remove the item from the website since it is not her responsibility.

Manche said that VPRO told the ministry that the website that offers the game was developed by young editors of the weekly magazine VPRO Gids, which does not receive a government subsidy, but is financed through membership fees from VPRO's approximately 300,000 subscribers.

In the Netherlands, the original board game, "The Settlers of Catan," is marketed by the 999 Games company.

PR representative Saskia de Lint told thePostthe firm "wants to stay out [of the issue] because we do not wish to take a stand." She added: "We deeply regret the use of the game by [the young viewer platform of] VPRO."

De Lint would not say if the firm views the distribution of the Dutch game as copyright infringement, nor whether 999 Games would ask VPRO remove the controversial content.

Calls and emails to the original game's distributors in the US and Germany were not immediately returned. The company's US representatives were at a retail convention in Las Vegas and were not immediately available for comment.

In our Palestinian culture, it is much more important if one "graduates" from an Israeli prison than from the most prestigious university in the world.

It is not clear at this stage when and if new presidential and parliamentary elections will ever be held in the Palestinian territories: The two major Palestinian parties, Fatah and Hamas, have yet to end their power struggle and agree on the formation of a Palestinian unity government that would pave the way for long overdue elections.

But if anyone is hoping that the elections will see the rise of moderate and charismatic leaders to power, then he is living in an illusion. In our Palestinian culture, it is more important if one "graduates" from an Israeli prison than from the most prestigious university in the world.

In our society, people like Prime Minister Salam Fayyad do not get many votes because they did not spend time in an Israeli prison. Fayyad's chances of winning would be higher if he had killed a Jew or sent his son to carry out a suicide bombing in Israel.

The number of years one spends in Israeli prison can even be a major factor in getting a job or a military rank in the Palestinian Authority. Many of the Palestinian "colonels" and "generals" earned their ranks not by attending military academies, but by spending years in Israeli prison for their involvement in violence.

PLO Chirman Yasser Arafat would choose his security chiefs and top aide according to the number of years they had spent in prison or the number of Israelis they had killed. "You spent 20 years in prison? Then you get the rank of colonel!" Arafat would say. "You carried out an attack in which three Jews were killed? You are a general!"

Jibril Rajoub and Mohammed Dahlan, the two former security chiefs who served under Arafat, were appointed thanks to their having spent time in Israeli prison, not because of their qualifications, and the reason some Palestinians have begun talking about jailed Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti -- who is serving five life sentences for his role in shooting attacks that killed a number of Israelis during the Second Intifada -- as the leading candidate to succeed Mahmoud Abbas.

Marwan Barghouti is therefore widely respected by Palestinians because of his role in the "Revolution."

A man like Fayyad, who studied in Texas and did not spend one day in an Israeli prison, standsnochance at the ballot box against people like Barghouti -- the by-product of what happens when the Palestinian Authority leadership praises prisoners and terrorists as heroes.

The Palestinian prisoners who were released in the Gilad Schalit prisoner agreement last October have already been offered thousands of dollars as well as apartments by both Palestinian governments: the one in the West Bank and the one in the Gaza Strip.

And it should not come as a surprise if some of these ex-prisoners, many of whom have Jewish blood on their hands, will be enthusiastically elected in the next round of Palestinian elections.

The Palestinians have raised an entire generation of glorification of suicide bombers and terrorists -- the direct result of decades of incitement and indoctrination, to which Palestinians are exposed at a very early age.

Under such circumstances, is it even a good idea at all to hold new elections in the Palestinian territories?

The fragile armistice betweenIsraeland the Gaza terror groups was stretched further on Thursday night as several rockets were fired at western Negev communities from the Strip.

Gaza terroristsfired a Grad rocket at Ashdod, which was intercepted by a nearbyIron Domebattery. Moments later Qassam rockets hit open areas in Eshkol Regional Council and the outskirts of Hof Ashkelon Regional Council. No injuries or damage were reported in either case.

A fourth rocket fired from Gaza overnight Friday landed in an open area in the Eshkol Regional Council. There were no reports of injury or damage.

Later Thursday night, Palestinian source in Gaza Strip reported that Air Force helicopters fired at an open area in the Sudaniya neighborhood in the Strip's northwest, as well as east of Gaza City.

Other reports said that Israel Navy ships fired at the Gaza coast. No injuries were reported.

Thursday morning saw a Gaza-launched rocket explode in an open area near Netivot. Several hours later a Grad rocket fired at Beersheba was intercepted by the Iron Dome system.

TheIDFrefrained from targeting any terror hubs in the Strip Thursday, following a request fromEgyptto temper its response in order "not to lose proportions" and allow the ceasefire time to take effect.

A political source told Ynet Wednesday that "at this time Israel will not respond to rockets fired at the south since theceasefire took effect," adding that "After each round of escalation we see what is known as the 'tail'  a few hours during which there is still some fire, as if to show that they have the last word.

"The situation is still within Israel's containment. We're following the situation closely," the source added.

Following the sporadic rocket fire and mounting security concerns, several municipalities, including Ashdod, Ashkelon, Beersheba, Ofakim and Gan Yavne announced that they intend to suspend Friday's school day.

Educational institutions will remain open in Hof Ashkelon and Shaar Hanegev regional councils and in Kiryat Malachi. The University of Ben Gurion will also remain open.

WASHINGTON The United States andJordanare reportedly discussing ways to secure what is believed to be Syria's substantial stockpile of chemical and biological weapons, in order to prevent them from falling into the hands ofHezbollahoral-Qaeda, should Syrian PresidentBashar Assad's regime come to its end.

Syriais believed to have one of the world's largest arsenals of nerve agents, including Sarin, cyanide, and mustard gas; and is one of only seven nations not to sign the 1992 Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC).

According to a Friday report in the Wall Street Journal, the two nations' militaries are developing joint contingencies in wake of mounting concerns that  should Assad be toppled  various terror groups will try to acquire the country's WMDs.

According to the report, one plan may see Jordan's Special Forces, "Acting as part of any broaderArab Leaguepeacekeeping mission, go into Syria to secure nearly a dozen sites thought to contain weapons."

Several top-ranking Jordanian defense officials visited the Pentagon in February, to discuss the threat posed by Syrian weapons of mass destruction.

According to Pentagon sources quoted in the report, Washington and Amman "do not foresee unilateral commando raids inside Syria." Locating and securing weapon sites will, however, remain a key part of any peacekeeping mission in the country.

The threat posed by Syria's WMD caches has become one of the most pressing issues for the West vis-à-vis Damascus.

US experts on Syria's weapons program say that Damascus is storing its nonconventional weapons in nearly a dozen sites, largely in northern and central Syria. Some of these sites are in cities currently racked by violence, such as Hama andHoms.

Prime MinisterBenjamin Netanyahuhas reportedly conveyed his concerns over Syria's WMDs to US President Barack Obama in theirmeeting earlier in the week.

US officials believe a UN Security Council resolution allowing outside intervention by Western powers in Syria remains impossible, saying that the Arab League would have a better chance at broker a peaceful diplomatic solution to the dire situation in Syria.